TE AWAMUTU COURIER. Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. MONDAY. 30th MAY. 1938. AIR FORCE RECRUITS.

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 56, Issue 4054, 30 May 1938, Page 4

TE AWAMUTU COURIER. Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. MONDAY. 30th MAY. 1938. AIR FORCE RECRUITS.

CLOSELY allied to New Zealand’s defence, but of broader national significance, is the process of recruiting lor the Air Force taking place in the Dominion to-day. From either point of view the process should be viewed with some concern. The opportunities of entering upon an aviation career are greater than they have ever been before, and the young New Zealander may train as a reservist, may possibly be accepted for the New Zealand Ah Force or may be accepted for training with the Royal Air Force in England. The last of these alternatives has a particular appeal to the enthusiastic young New Zealander, and it is reported that approximately eighteen recruits for the Royal Air Force are leaving New Zealand every five weeks- If this is so, not only is New Zealand losing valuable reservists foi its own Air Force, but it is also losing as citizens the flower of its young manhood. Physically perfect, mentally above the average., these citizens are the ones who can least be spared from a young and under-populated country like New’ Zealand. From the recruit’s point of view the position may also be serious. On the threshold of life, it is only too easy to grasp the shadow’ of a glittering immediate future and neglect the substance of subsequent existence. However important it may be for Britain to accumulate as large a reserve of Air Force pilots as possible, the short-term commission of five years to which so many young men have been attracted has a manifest “ nigger in the woodpile.” At the end of the term the trainee retires with a gratuity of a few hundred pounds and the thanks of the nation—to what ? Untrained for any other vocation in life, he may find, as thousands of others have found, that the ranks of Imperial Airways are closed to all except the cream of the profession, that commercial aviation is unable to absorb him, and that he is thrown on his owm resources. One of the unhappiest associations of the British short-term contingent abroad is the desperate struggle to find a job in civil life as the five-year period is drawing to a close. The whole position is one to which both the New Zealand Government and the young men of the country should give careful consideration.